Note: We no longer offer the ability to buy and sell Bitcoin on Circle Pay. Customers who hold Bitcoin on Circle Pay can continue to receive and send Bitcoin, but once they convert their balance to another currency, they will not be able to convert it back to Bitcoin. For more information, check out our help article about the changes, found here. If you want to buy and sell Bitcoin (and other cryptocurrencies), you can check out our other app, Circle Invest, which is currently available for most US residents.
Sending Money using the Bitcoin Network
Bitcoin customers on Circle Pay can send money to anyone anywhere in the world no matter what Bitcoin wallet the recipient uses (other cryptocurrencies are not supported on Circle Pay). As the message above mentions, only customers holding Bitcoin on Circle Pay will be able to send money to a BTC address. All transactions are free, secure, and fast no matter where you are sending the funds.
- Sign in to your Circle Pay account and navigate to the Send tab. There, you can enter in the amount you’d like to send.
- You will have to enter the Bitcoin address to choose where to send your funds. Once the recipient sends you the address for their destination, we suggest copying and pasting the address into the send page to prevent any mistakes.
- Alternatively, you can use the Circle Pay app to scan a QR code to send funds, and that will fill in the address information for you! (Other Bitcoin services and online merchants provide QR codes to complete payments.) To scan a QR code, select the QR Code option on the main Account tab, and just point your camera at the code.
How long do bitcoin transactions take to complete?
Bitcoin transactions can take anywhere between a few minutes to about 40 minutes.
That being said, the timeline depends on the network itself. Since the settlement of bitcoin transactions is governed by the speed of confirmations on the blockchain (the public ledger of all Bitcoin transactions), Circle has no way of canceling transactions or speeding them up.
A single confirmation on the blockchain happens within ten minutes. And since Circle requires four such confirmations before clearing a transaction and no longer considering it Pending, the average completion time for these transactions is about 40 minutes.
Note: If 40 minutes has passed, just keep checking back! It will eventually complete 😄 .
Where can you find your Bitcoin address?
As mentioned in the note at the top, only customers who hold Bitcoin on Circle Pay will be able to generate an address. When someone who isn't on Circle wants to send you money, you need to generate a Bitcoin address for destination of payment (Circle Pay customers can just send money to each other via email address). Circle Pay makes it easy to create as many Bitcoin addresses as you would like.
Here's how to generate a BTC address for your Circle Pay account:
On Circle.com
- Click on your name in the top right corner of the screen
- Click on Get Address in the dropdown menu
On iOS
- Click on the Settings button, second from the right under your account balance on the main Messages tab
- Choose My Address from the list
- At the top of the screen, select My Address
On Android
- Click on the QR Code button, after clicking on the 3 vertical dots in the top right corner of the main screen
- At the top of the screen, select My Address
This will generate a new Bitcoin address every time that will stay connected to your Circle Pay account.
You can send that QR code and Bitcoin address to anyone that you choose by copying the address (if you are using a browser) or by selecting the sharing option at the bottom of that page (if you are using a mobile phone).
Other cryptocurrencies
At the moment, Circle does not support any other cryptocurrencies on Circle Pay. For buying and selling Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other cryptocurrencies, you can check out our other product Circle Invest, which is currently available for most US residents.